A sort-of monthly and quarterly wrap-up… let’s just call it an update with this crazy moment of viral outbreak.
My quarterly goals were mostly thrown out the window for the start of 2020 as we all know the world has been in a tailspin over the treat of a nasty virus – and much of my list involved being more physically present in social gatherings and professional appointments. *shrug*
There are many points in my writing career that I feel isolated and like a caged animal. Usually the remedy would be a short break away, a holiday, an outing, some form of social interaction or inspiration. But after nearly a month of being ill followed by social isolation from Covid-19 outbreak, those activities weren’t really feasible. So I decided to mix it up. Stop everything. Put a nix on all my daily tasks for the month of April and do other things I love.
That mostly translated to reading. Which is fantastic for my TBR. I had this great idea to start listing the number of books on my TBR shelf. (*cough* bookcase and storage boxes *cough*) I was astounded when I finally calculated all of the fiction novels waiting to be read… it was 453! Totally embarrassing… it’s going to take me years to catch up and not have an overwhelming number of titles waiting for attention. I put it down to moving – having volumes hidden away in boxes for over 3 years. Even though I have a self-imposed book buying ban, I didn’t feel like I was making that much of a dent in the number of tomes waiting for me to read. I didn’t realise how much underlying frustration I had over this. Add to that my housemate dropping comments about how many books I own, and I started to question the collection myself. But March/April has made me feel much better. I’ve accomplished a 23 book dent in the TBR. (April being my best reading month to date – I broke my record for most novel read in a calendar month. It felt great to achieve something even though I was on a staycation 😉 )
Books read in Mar Apr 2020
During this break I also got to restore/renovate some old bookshelves giving me that giddy feeling of being able to put my lovely hard and paperbacks on display.
April also saw me being able to shower my furbabies with even more love, learning more pet grooming skills (thanks Youtube!) and buying a few key pieces of professional grooming accouterments.
Other creative endeavors like cooking, gardening, and sewing – and planning out ideas for future fabric related projects filled my head. I always need some sort of artistic outlet, and usually that is my writing, but it was nice to take a month off and see it explode in different mediums. So while I was in social isolation, I was still able to recharge the batteries and get me back on track to becoming more productive and passionate.
Heck, I even managed to squeeze in finishing off an online marketing course.
With many forced to stay home during this period, I actually got to catch up a lot more with my friends than in many, many years.
So this scary thing, threatening to make us sick, steal our loved ones, and possibly cripple businesses and take away peoples livelihoods has made me look at the upside and make my own opportunity to reconnect, revive, and rest.
Here’s hoping you can get some positiveness out of this epidemic too.
It’s going to be back to normal for May and I’m looking forward to getting some vigorous writing done.
How has this lockdown affected you? Did you take advantage to get some writing or reading done?
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Casey Carlisle 